Return to Vienna (21 page)

He took it very philosophically. “Thank God the car was in the barn out of sight, or they’d never have believed her. It was very good of Frau Krikl. We must find some way of making it up to her.”

“Do you think they’ll come back?”

“I don’t know, but at least it’s given us a breather. Once we’ve found those scrolls and safely handed them over to the authorities, there’s nothing that the Hellwegs and their Nazi gang can do about it.”

Like me, Steve was filled with a new enthusiasm. Everything seemed possible again. Searching the Austrian mountains for some ancient scrolls was no longer an occupation strictly for lunatics. We could hardly wait to get cracking again, though we did our best to be sociable during the evening with the small group gathered in the barroom. Inevitably, Steve was told the proud royal history of the antlers that hung above the stove.

In the morning we set out earlier than the day before. We also took a different route, going down the valley first and then working around the mountain on its other side, so that the Krikls shouldn’t become curious about our movements.

It was still gray and overcast, but there was a brightening look about the sky which matched our brighter mood. And there was more color in the landscape, the long meadow grass and pointed pine trees shining with a vivid greenness.

Eagerly we took up our search where we’d left off yesterday, but as time passed our spirits drooped again. By noon Steve and I had examined every possible crevice all around the lake. We sat together on the little stony beach to have a rest—and wondered what to do next.

Common sense said it was hopeless to go on. But I still believed, unshakably, that this was the place. All our reasoning pointed to here, my instinct clinched it, I
knew.

But I also knew that I’d been asleep for some time on that afternoon. Max could have taken his time. He need not have chosen a place right here beside the lake, he could have gone some distance away. My eyes lifted to the slopes that ran steeply up toward the summit of the mountain, lost now in cloud. Rugged and broken, this terrain offered thousands of possibilities. It would take us days and days,
weeks,
to search it all.

Just a glance at Steve told me he was thinking the same.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should never have suggested this crazy stunt. We don’t even know for sure that there
are
any scrolls. Perhaps it’s true that Max never managed to get them out of Hungary.”

“But I feel certain that he did. It’s just...”

“Could he have hidden them somewhere else? Somewhere quite different?”

“No, it was here. I ... I just
know
it was.” My voice faltered. How could I possibly tell Steve why I was so very positive about it?

Past memories and present despair added up, and I felt tears stinging my eyes. Fumbling for a handkerchief, I suddenly stopped short, my attention riveted.

“Steve! Look up there! Do you see that big outcrop of rock that looks like a crouching lion?”

“Where?”

“There! No, farther to the left. I remember pointing it out to Max while we were sunbathing on the beach, and he said it looked more like a sphinx.”

And Max had laughed at his idea. I could still hear him, low and throaty. Somehow
jubilant.

“That’s where the scrolls are hidden,” I told Steve, half-stifled with excitement. It was all clear as crystal now. The old Greek legend about the man who could solve the riddle of the sphinx being rewarded with untold treasure. It was just the sort of twist that would appeal to Max’s sense of humor.

Already I was clambering up from the little beach, grabbing tufts of grass to haul myself over patches where there was no foothold. In places the rock was covered with a tough sort of heather that was very slippery, but Steve was right behind me and gave an occasional helpful heave.

It was a stiffer climb than I’d expected, and I soon got hopelessly winded through going too fast. Steve made me take a break until I got my breath back.

“Five minutes won’t make much difference, love.”

As we got nearer, all resemblance to an animal faded away. It was just another of the rocky outcrops that dotted the mountainside. We had to keep our eyes fixed to make sure we didn’t lose it.

Close by, it was bigger than I’d thought—maybe fifteen feet high. The rock was weathered and deeply pitted. I stood back, surveying it as one piece, trying to get inside Max’s mind. A huge boulder formed the sphinx’s head. On its underside was a slit that could well have been the animal’s mouth.

“It’ll be in there, Steve.”

I reached up eagerly, but even standing on tiptoe my hand came nowhere near the crevice.

“Let me,” said Steve.

Even he couldn’t reach it without balancing on a ledge. He had to stretch to get his hand into the opening. As he felt around inside, I could hardly bear to watch.

“There is something here . . . something hard and
round. It’s wedged in pretty tight “

“Steve, is it... ?”

He gave a final tug. There was a scattering of grit on our heads, and he drew out into daylight a metal tube, discolored and dirty. It was maybe two feet long, and about three inches in diameter.

Without speaking, Steve held it out to me, but I was trembling so much I couldn’t take it from him. I stared at the thing in a sort of numbed fascination.

Steve was more practical. “Let’s see if I can unscrew the end. We might as well find out what all the fuss has been about.”

The screw thread seemed to be corroded, and in order to get more purchase, Steve knelt on the ground, wedging the cylinder between his thighs. Three times he strained at it, his shoulder muscles taut, and at last the cap moved a fraction. After that it came more easily.

With the end off, we both peered inside the tube. We could see the age-worn edges of what looked like thick, yellowed paper, tightly rolled.

“I suppose it’s vellum or something,” said Steve. With a finger and thumb he tried easing the roll out gently, but it wouldn’t come. He grinned ruefully. “I daren’t risk tearing it! In any case, once we got it out of this thing, we’d probably never get it back again.” He put the cap back on the tube and screwed it tight.

A constraint seemed to fall upon us then, a sense of awe. It was in an oddly subdued mood that we made our way carefully down to the lake, where we’d left the haversack on the beach.

Neither of us felt like eating any lunch. But we drank the lager, to celebrate our victory. This helped to untie the knots within us both. We started to laugh and broke into a sort of dance of jubilation, prancing about like children. Then suddenly we both stood still, intensely aware of each other. Very slowly Steve bent his head and kissed me.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again the sun was shining.

The sun had shone on Max and me, here on this lonely lakeside beach. I’d been lying asleep, and woke up to hear Max’s footsteps on the shingle. I’d stayed unmoving, wanting him to come and lie down with me, wanting time to go on and on and on.

And then I’d opened my eyes, blinking at the sun’s brilliance, and looked up at him. He was standing over me, smiling. Laughing, almost.

Max threw himself down beside me, and at the time I didn’t register the casual way he’d tossed aside the fishing holdall that up to then he’d handled with such loving care. Lying there, I was so full of languor. Even speaking was a big effort, because my lips seemed stiff. There was a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.

“Darling,” I said rather thickly, “I want a drink.”

He got up again and went to fetch me some water from the lake in one of the plastic mugs. It was cold and fresh, and I drank thirstily.

“All right now?”

I stretched. “Mmmm! Just sleepy.” I’d been too happy then, too absorbed with Max, to think about that curious taste in my mouth. But now I knew what it had been.

“Steve,” I said suddenly, “that day Max hid the scrolls, he gave me ...”

Steve sat down on the pebbles and reached for my hand, pulling me down beside him. His arm slipped around me.

“What did he give you, darling?”

I simply couldn’t tell Steve. I mumbled instead, “He gave me some water from the lake. It was delicious.”

“Would you like some now?”

I shook my head.

“Funny girl!” laughed Steve. Then he was suddenly serious, his gaze steady on mine. “I love you, Jessica.”

And I loved him, too.

“I want you, my darling,” he said huskily. “You know that?”

How Max had wanted me that day! He’d taken me into his arms, and there was a heady excitement about him, a feverish exhilaration. I felt a wild surging of my own blood, my need matching his, mounting with his. Our loving was like nothing that had ever gone before, like everything that had gone before blended into long moments of unbelievable ecstasy.

I stirred, and it was Steve’s arm that cradled me. Steve’s lips upon my throat. Fighting off my own sick memories, I must have stiffened.

Steve sensed my rejection of him. His hold loosened, his arm falling away.

“It’s too soon,” he murmured sadly.

A question? A statement? What was I doing to him, this man I loved?

I knew now what Max, my husband, had been. And I knew now that our lovemaking that day, here beside the little lake, had been for him only a final release from days of pent-up tension. With the spoils of his crime safely stashed away, Max had needed to expend his tautened energy. Any woman would have served his purpose. Ilse Hellweg or Mitzi Flamm. ... I was just the one who happened to be on hand.

Knowing all this, I still could not forget the glory of that summer’s afternoon. But I must somehow find a way of forgetting if I was ever to escape from the spell which bound me to Max.

I turned my head and looked at Steve. I loved him. Above everything else now, I wanted to be with him. Always. Yet when he touched me, when he kissed me, I thought of Max. It was Steve I wanted. It was Max I dreamed of.

Steve was watching me, his face close to mine, his brow carved into those deep furrows I had seen there so often. He could not fathom what was happening within my mind. And I could not tell him.

I knew suddenly that this was the moment to break the spell, here in this very same spot. If I failed, then Max’s shadow would forever haunt me.

I kept my gaze on Steve, steady, unblinking. “I love you.”

I saw his gray eyes widen, the frown lines swiftly vanishing, and I knew I had spoken the words aloud. As he leaned toward me I slipped my arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips.

He held me to him, fiercely, urgently. But then I sensed him hesitate and understood the question lying there between us. Was I sure? Quite sure? And I whispered yes.

The sun was cooling when finally I felt him stir. He raised his head to look at me, and smiled. And then he kissed me gently.

“Darling, it’s getting late. We’ll have to go.” I didn’t mind that now. I had banished my ghost. Steve and I had so many tomorrows.

We came down quickly from the mountain, aiming to pack our few things and get moving. There was an urgency upon us now to clear up this whole business as soon as possible and put the past behind us.

It was wonderful to feel lighthearted again. All at once life seemed to be simple and uncomplicated. While walking, we ate some of the black bread and sausage we hadn’t wanted at lunchtime, and talked about the future. Our lifetime together.

Steve said, “I’ll ask the firm for a transfer away from Vienna. I might have to fall back a rung or two, but it wouldn’t be for long.”

“What’s wrong with staying on in Vienna?” I knew how much Steve’s career meant to him and told myself it didn’t really matter to me where we were, just so long as we were together.

I could see he was pleased, and knew I’d been right. “You’re sure it wouldn’t remind you too much?”

I shook my head. “I love you, Steve.”

Without realizing it, we had stopped walking. Steve turned to face me.

“I can remember so clearly the way you looked that first day we met, when Max had just brought you out to Austria. You seemed so young and vulnerable, and I hoped to hell you weren’t going to get hurt too badly. I think I’ve been in love with you from that moment on. Did you ever guess?”

I put my finger to his lips, silencing him. “I was always glad you were around. I knew somehow that I could depend on you.”

His kiss was  made awkward  by  the long  metal cylinder containing the scrolls. Impatiently, he slid it under the flap of the haversack so as to leave his hands free. When we continued walking, his arm was around me.

From here the
Gasthaus
itself was lost among the pine trees, but in places we could see the white ribbon of track that wound its way up through the valley.

Suddenly Steve stopped again, with a jerk. I felt his arm go tense before dropping from my shoulder.

“What is it, darling?”

“On the road. . . . See, there—where it-crosses the stream. Watch!”

I had to wait before I saw it. A streak of bright scarlet heading up the valley road, then disappearing again among the trees.

I looked around at Steve. “Is it... ?”

“Yes, it’s the Maserati, all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Dead sure!”

We saw the car again, and then again, rapid glimpses as it traveled the visible sections of the track until it was finally lost from view.

“We’ll stay right where we are,” said Steve, “and wait for them to go back.”

A full half-hour we waited, sitting side by side on a big flat stone, watching. Then Steve gripped my arm. “They’re coming up here!”

He pointed, and I too saw them. Two figures still far off, but not so far I couldn’t make out that one was fat and the other thin.

“What do we do now?”

Steve was considering. “If we keep our heads down they won’t be able to see us. We’d better start back to the lake, and then take the long route around to the
Gasthaus.
With any luck at all we’ll be packed and gone before they return there themselves.”